CMA student spends summer in Taiwan learning Mandarin through State Department program

Tom Coyne

Sep 30 2025

CMA cadet Erik Thompson spent his summer learning Mandarin through a U.S. State Department immersion program. (Photo by Alysha May)

Culver Military Academy first classman Erik Thompson spent his summer taking part in a prestigious U.S. State Department immersion program called the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), where students learn languages vital to national security.

Thompson was fluent already in English, Russian and Spanish before taking part in NSLI-Y, a selective program with about a 15 percent acceptance rate. He spent the summer in Taiwan learning Mandarin. Culver Academies, one of the top boarding schools in the United States, has a world culture and languages department where Spanish, French, Mandarin and Latin are taught.

Thompson spent eight weeks living in New Taipei City, Taiwan. He said Taipei and New Taipei City are international cities where people can get around even if they don’t speak the language. But he said he was committed to speaking to people in only Mandarin.

“I really wanted to focus on the Chinese,” he said. “I think being forced to be that uncomfortable in a place where you speak virtually nothing except that language helps you progress a lot.”

He’s happy with how much he learned.

“I think I went from novice to intermediate. That’s a pretty big jump. I’m very happy with that improvement. I still have some work to do in terms of reading and writing,” he said.

He attended class seven hours a day, Monday through Friday, at Tamkang University, working on speaking, reading and writing the language. Every Wednesday the class traveled somewhere to learn more about Taiwan’s culture.

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The scene from a street in in “Taiwan, Old Village.” (Photo by Erik Thompson)

Thompson said one of the more memorable trips was going to the Yanlang Museum in Yilan, where they learned about the indigenous people of Taiwan and about the area’s nature. They also went to a bubble tea museum, which he thought was “cool,” and to a semiconductor plant.

His host family also showed him some sights around Taiwan. They took him to Sun Moon Lake, a popular tourist spot renowned for its natural beauty and cultural heritage, and to Queen’s Head Rock in northern Yehliu, named for its likeness to England's Queen Elizabeth I.

His host family also gave him the opportunity to try Taiwanese food.

“I had a lot of meals there I wouldn’t think of eating,” he said. “I had pig’s brain and snake soup. It’s weird in the moment, but you are grateful for it afterward.”

He discovered he loves playing badminton, a popular sport in Taiwan.

“I’d go with my host family as much as possible. We’d play all the time,” he said.

He also was impressed that people in Taiwan don’t put their trash out on the sidewalk to be picked up. Instead, a trash truck playing music drives through the streets alerting residents to bring their trash down.

What impressed him most of all, though, was how people in Taiwan have a culture of respect, kindness and being courteous.

“I think sometimes day-to-day we sometimes forget to take an extra step to be a little more courteous or a little kinder to someone,” he said. “That can make a difference in someone else’s day. It goes with the ‘Find joy. Fuel joy’ theme at Culver. People in Taiwan always take that step of being kinder, being more respectful. It elevated my mood. I think that would go a long way here if we would apply the same rules in terms of kindness and respect.”

Thompson grew up in Washington, D.C., speaking English and Russian, talking Russian primarily with his mother and grandmother. When he was young, he spent a couple of summers in Belarus and he and his family lived in Ukraine for a year from 2013-2014 during the Ukrainian Revolution, when thousands of residents protested after the leader of Ukraine announced he wanted to deepen ties with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Thompson lived near Independence Square, where the protests took place.

“It was kind of crazy,” he said.

Thompson visited Sun Moon Lake, a popular tourist spot renowned for its natural beauty and cultural heritage. (Photo by Erik Thompson)

When he returned to Washington he enrolled in Washington International School, a preschool-12 grade school that believes international-mindedness is an essential mindset where students are immersed in either French or Spanish. Thompson picked Spanish. Then in the summer after fourth grade he went and spent a summer in Spain living with a host family. He continued with the Spanish immersion program when he returned to Washington.

“That helped me get my Spanish to where it is now,” he said.

When he arrived at Culver, he took AP Spanish as a freshman, which kept him from taking Mandarin. He applied to a virtual State Department program before his sophomore year to help him catch up in Mandarin. Then he started applying for the NSLI-Y program.

He said he was always interested in the culture of Southeast Asia, which is why he decided to learn Mandarin. He also thought it would help him in his career. He hopes to attend either West Point or the Naval Academy, both of which put a priority on languages, or the University of Notre Dame.

“I want to apply the languages I know into some sort of career,” he said.

Notre Dame offers a degree in international economics. It offers a study abroad program where he could study economics in southeast Asia while working on his Mandarin.

“So I thought of learning Mandarin as more as an investment,” he said.

He said he’d recommend the NSLI-Y program to anyone.

“I’ve been talking to a couple of students already,” he said. “It’s an amazing experience. You learn so much about another part of the world.”